ement began, they aimed at nothing but liberty to think and
speak their own way. They never dreamt of interfering with others,
although they were quite aware that others, when they could, were likely
to interfere with them. Lord Macaulay might have remembered that Cranmer
was working all his life with the prospect of being burnt alive as his
reward--and, as we all know, he actually was burnt alive.

When the Protestant teaching began first to spread in the
Netherlands--before one single Catholic had been illtreated there,
before a symptom of a mutinous disposition had shown itself among the
people, an edict was issued by the authorities for the suppression of
the new opinions.

The terms of this edict I will briefly describe to you.

The inhabitants of the United Provinces were informed that they were to
hold and believe the doctrines of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. 'Men
and women,' says the edict, 'who disobey this command shall be punished
as disturbers of public order. Women who have fallen into heresy shall
be buried alive. Men, if they recant, shall lose their heads. If they
continue obstinate, they shall be burnt at the stake.

'If man or woman be suspected of heresy, no one shall shelter or protect
him or her; and no stranger shall be admitted to lodge in any inn or
dwelling-house unless he bring with him a testimonial of orthodoxy from
the priest of his parish.

'The Inquisition shall enquire into the private opinions of every
person, of whatever degree; and all officers of all kinds shall assist
the Inquisition at their peril. Those who know where heretics are
concealed, shall denounce them, or they shall suffer as heretics
themselves. Heretics (observe the malignity of this paragraph)--heretics
who will give up other heretics to justice, shall themselves be pardoned
if they will promise to conform for the future.'

Under this edict, in the Netherlands alone, more than fifty thousand
human beings, first and last, were deliberately murdered. And,
gentlemen, I must say that proceedings of this kind explain and go far
to excuse the subsequent intolerance of Protestants.

Intolerance, Mr. Gibbon tells us, is a greater crime in a Protestant
than a Catholic. Criminal intolerance, as I understand it, is the
intolerance of such an edict as that which I have read to you--the
unprovoked intolerance of difference of opinion. I conceive that the
most enlightened philosopher might have grown hard and narrow-minded